Keynote: Code Is Making Government More Effective

Next up was Tim O’Reilly with a panel entitled Code Is Making Government More Effective with Jared Smith (Bluehost) and Michal Migurski (Code For America). First up was Jared. Last year Jared talked about the case study: Economic impact of open source on small business, this year those they’re talking about using open source code to make government more efficient. First we saw a video of how Code for America has helped the city of Oakland. Oakland has a site called Oakland Answers that was one product of this partnership.

Next Michal came out to talk about Code for America. The Code for America Fellows is looking for new applicants. It’s a year long program with Code for America. The bulk of your time is spent in San Francisco at the offices there. Code for America helps you build your skills and make you better at what you’re doing. If you can’t do a fellowship you might want to look at the Code for America Brigade. Tim participated in the Brigade to help Oakland create Oakland Answers which offers answers to city related questions in plain English.

You don’t even have to be a coder to participate! You can become a fellow, join a brigade or start one or you can donate to just help support the organization.